


mighty words, mighty deeds

by theprimrosepath



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Dom/sub Undertones, Dorks in Love, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff without Plot, Getting Together, Jester Lavorre Is Not a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Non-Sexual Kink, POV Caleb Widogast, PWP without Porn, Strength Kink, Touch-Starved, mentioned past astrid/eadwulf/bren, most things are canon consistent but timeline is non-existent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:21:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29128647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theprimrosepath/pseuds/theprimrosepath
Summary: Caleb can't escape loving Jester. He can't escape her muscles, either.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 6
Kudos: 84





	mighty words, mighty deeds

**Author's Note:**

> me: welp, i'm just not satisfied by the kink fics in this tag. there needs to be more.  
> me:  
> me: goddammit, i have to write some don't i.

"You hold it like this?" Jester asks.

In her hands is Yasha's greatsword. Yasha shakes her head, though with a smile, and leans in to adjust Jester's grip and stance. "You need to firm up your wrists. Bend your elbows a little more. And stand like so. Give yourself a strong foundation."

When she steps back, Jester looks much more like a short, blue version of Yasha readying the Magician's Judge for a battle.

She grins. Her top is sleeveless today, so Caleb can see her thick arms flex as she raises the blade a little higher.

He averts his eyes. Tries to stifle the sudden warmth rising to his ears.

The last time Caleb acknowledged this— _taste_ of his, he was 16 years old and had Eadwulf to do stunts as silly as throw both him and Astrid over his shoulders with ease on their way to Astrid's dorm room. Apparently he is still as silly and captivated by strength at age 33.

"Hey, Caleb!" Jester cries. "Do I look like I could chop a guy's head off?"

Caleb chances another look in order to respond and feels a flush begin at his ears despite himself. The weight of the greatsword is doing an absurd amount of favors to the definition of her shoulders and biceps.

He pushes aside the distracting thoughts with some effort and replies, "You only need your handaxe for that."

Jester throws her head back and laughs.

It's a wonderful sound. As easily as that, the warmth suffusing his face feels good (instead of embarrassing).

With a grin and a toss of her hair out of her face, Jester begins miming attacks with the greatsword at empty air—clearly inspired by how Yasha looks in a battle but enthusiastically unconcerned about realism.

Caleb's mouth twitches into a smile.

His eyes are drawn back to her form, though, the strength of her arms and torso. They don't tremble an ounce.

No. No. He stills and looks away again.

Something catches the corner of his gaze. Yasha is looking at him with raised, curious eyebrows—though when he grimaces upon eye contact, the half-smile still lingering on her face broadens into amused fullness.

Götter verdammt. He shoves his face back into the book he was reading.

This time at least, Caleb's determination to focus on his book means that he does not look up again until there is a soft meow at his feet. He lifts his book higher so that Frumpkin can leap onto his lap, and when he looks around, both Yasha and Jester have vanished off elsewhere. He gives his fey friend a relieved scritch behind the ears as he settles in.

Eventually, there comes a point when Caleb has to wonder if Jester is teasing him on purpose.

It's usually circumstance: Jester, battered and bloodied and triumphant, yanking Fjord and Caduceus out from the guts of a massive centipede by the former's belt. Jester, cheerfully clambering onto a chair floating above her head with ease. Jester, muscled torso bare of everything except one of Beau's sashes around her chest.

But then Jester grins at him when Caleb sees her rolling a snowball and stops in place to gape because the snowball is up to her waist in size.

"You should see the bottom part," she calls.

Caleb swallows against his dry throat. "That is not the bottom?"

Jester points in the direction she is heading. He looks over and sees another snowball that is indeed larger—up to her chest in height if his judgment can be believed.

So he watches her roll the second snowball over and heft it up onto the first, and he presses the heels of his hands against his eyes in order to turn away because _fuck_. It's cold enough to freeze the marrow in his bones yet he's baking uncomfortably in his layers.

The slap of a hand on his shoulder nearly sends him out of his skin.

Jester spins around his side, her brilliant grin shining in the winter sun, and holds out snow-encrusted mittens with purple fingers wiggling in his face. "Making a snowman is really cold work, Caleb—oh, are you okay?"

Caleb clears his throat, rubs his face down, and smiles at her. "Ja, of course. I think the cold is getting to me a little as well. Perhaps there is a bakery nearby?"

"That's exactly what I was thinking! We could try that bread trick again now that your hands aren't covered in dirt and stuff."

"No, now they are either clean or on a bad day covered in bat shit."

Jester slips an arm under Caleb's, and he can feel the strength of her upper arm even beneath all the warm layers. "Well good, because today's been a great day, yeah?"

He smiles down at her as they begin to walk. "Ja."

There are times in the tower when Jester will arrange and rearrange furniture to her liking right in front of him, humming to herself all the while. She apologizes the first time, when she looks up from hauling an armchair closer to the salon's fireplace and catches Caleb's eyes right as he realizes how he's been staring.

"No, no," he stammers, turning away and resisting the urge to hide his face behind his book. "It's not an insult, make yourself at home. Whatever is comfortable for you."

So she moves the armchair closer, and Caleb remembers to leave it in that spot for next time (ignoring the desire to see her moving it again). She asks about ladders and ends up with two under her arms for the art studio in her suite. And she carries out a stack of chairs into the great hall for another guest feast. And she saunters into the salon one day with a dozen of the fey spectral cats piled in her arms and across her shoulders.

None of it ever fazes Jester or her strength. Caleb occasionally has to _Polymorph_ into something stupid to relax—or leave the tower so he can feel better about muffling screams into his hands.

He catches her, sometimes, looking at him in moments of worry or pride or quiet with a softness around her eyes that _hurts_ to contemplate. More often, they share grins just for each other. On occasion, she speaks so gently to him. She returns to his door asking for a reread of _Der Katzenprinz_ , and a few pages in, she leans her whole body against his side. The arch of one of her horns brushes his jaw.

Caleb stammers, and that he can _feel_ the vibration of her semi-nervous giggles shakes him to his core.

He doesn't know what to do about this. Confront Jester, maybe. But his selfishness doesn't want to break this illusion. He desperately wants to soak up as much affection as she will give him.

It doesn't help when, in a library, she lifts him bodily to stand on her shoulders without an ounce of forewarning.

"Do you see it?" Jester asks below, only the barest hint of strain puffing her words.

Oh gods. Oh, ficken sich selbst. Caleb can only brace his hands on the bookshelves so as to not immediately topple over, struggling to focus his now cross-eyed gaze on the lettering of the spines. His thoughts bounce around his skull like marbles. He is _so warm_.

"Caleb?"

"Ja," and he hates the breathiness of it. Stop that, Widogast. He blinks hard, swallows with a dry mouth, and says stronger, "Remind me of the title you are searching for?"

Eventually, he manages to find the book. Jester sets him back down with a dramatic huff of, "Wow, Caleb, what have you been eating?" and he wavers on his feet as his vision goes hazy again.

Jester shoots a steadying arm around his shoulders before he can brace a hand on the shelves, and oh fuck. It takes every ounce of Caleb's willpower to resist the urge to melt into her arms like so much pudding.

"Are you okay?" she asks, alarmed.

At that, he winces and draws back. "Yes, I'm... ah." The book he retrieved for Jester is on the floor, and belatedly he realizes he dropped it. He rubs his eyes and bends over to pick it back up; as he straightens, her hand latches on his arm in concern despite his regained steadiness. His flush is one of embarrassment now. "Sorry. I am fine now."

"Have you been staying up too late again, Caleb?" she chides.

"Perhaps so."

"Well at least you seem to be putting more meat on your bones." She prods him in the arm at the same place she grabbed him, a teasing lilt in her voice. "Not that you aren't still a super skinny wizard, but you are heavier than last time."

"It's all the pastries you request from the cats. They are always too tasty to resist."

He smiles as she laughs. "No, Caleb! I have to start ordering even more now! You're eating them all."

Of course, it's not long before Caleb ends up in Jester's arms for less-than-pleasant reasons.

The first thing he processes is pain, then swaying darkness. He groans and finds as he twists a little that he's leaning front forward against something soft and moving, chin braced uncomfortably on the top, and pieces together that it's a person once he realizes those are arms under his thighs. And the darkness is because his eyes are still closed.

He tries to blink blearily. Only one of them isn't crusted shut with blood that's too much effort to force right now.

"Caleb?" says Jester right beside his ear.

Her voice vibrates against his chest. He groans again and tucks his face deeper into the crook between her neck and shoulder.

She leaves him alone for a moment as he refocuses. Remembers getting his ass beaten and falling into the soft darkness of unconsciousness. Now awake and being carried in Jester's arms for who knows how long. Thank the gods he is in too much pain to be more than in a vaguely pleased daze at the knowledge.

He shifts his head so his mouth is less obstructed and says, "Everyone?"

"All okay. Mostly." Jester stops moving and says in a louder aside—to the others, he assumes—"Caleb's conscious, guys. Do you think you can do the dome?"

"I can do the tower." He chuckles a little into her neck at her surprised silence. "I did not have the chance to blow that high-level spell before getting knocked onto my back like an idiot."

"Oh, Caleb."

She eventually settles him on the ground as the rest of the party regroup in a circle around them. All of them are in various states of bloodied exhaustion. Beau looks equally as beat to shit as he feels, though she seems satisfied enough to be tucked in Yasha's blood-spattered but more hale arms.

Caleb finds his components and tries to sit up straight, still light-headed. He sways dangerously for a second before being steadied.

It's Jester, who pulls him in further so she can settle her arm around his torso and brace him against her side. "Take it easy. I've got you."

Caleb blinks and shakes his head like a dog. "Okay."

With slightly trembling hands, he buries Calianna's wand an inch into the ground, sets out the granite and small wooden cat, and arranges the pieces of stained glass into the proper pattern. Caduceus finishes a _Prayer of healing_ just as he slides the last shard of glass into its rightful place, and Caleb breathes out easier as he suffuses the components with power. A glimmering doorway erupts in front of them.

"Thank the gods," Fjord sighs. Without preamble, the others file inside.

Caleb gathers up the wand and glass and rock and cat statue and feels the same relief. He's already aching for the comfort of the steaming hot bathtub that waits in his room.

Jester's arm squeezes him a bit. "Are you okay to stand? You still look kind of rough."

Before he can get out more than an, "Um," he's being lifted like a bride. "Schieße."

At first, her smile is entirely satisfied in a way that would send a shiver down Caleb's spine if there weren't still aching wounds and smears of dried blood caked all over him. But it soon falls into something between sadness and frustration, though not at him. "Humor me? Please?"

It comes out soft. "Of course."

He focuses on Jester's face as she walks them into the familiar entrance hall. She's worrying at her bottom lip, and Caleb feels his mouth twist in concern and sympathy. As strong a woman as she is—both her muscles and otherwise—she's not nearly as tireless and invulnerable as she likes to seem.

"You seem bothered," he murmurs.

Jester sighs and dips him lower as she slumps a little. "Kind of. It's not anything bad, I promise."

"Mhm. Do you want to talk about it?"

"I just feel a little useless. I don't know. First we all got beat up really hard, and then I ran out of healing spells, and we had to get away before more showed up while Caduceus had to take care of everyone, you know? You were really hurt," she says with a distant, unhappy frown, "and the only thing I could do was carry you with us until Caduceus could start healing."

"Well, I was not awake to see it, but I think it's a safe bet to say that you were using all your spells to kick ass instead, ja?"

She gives a small snort. "Yeah."

"Not to mention you are our second strongest after Yasha. And I'm heavier, you know, from all the pastries I'm eating." He smiles upon hearing another laugh escape her. "Can you imagine if Fjord had to carry me all that way?"

"He's gotten stronger, too," she objects, but a smile continues to grace her lips.

"Ja. But he's still a little bit of a beanpole."

"Well what about _you_?"

"Oh, I am even more so a beanpole. Who better to judge if someone is a bit of a beanpole than the wizard with no meat on his bones?"

Jester's giggling echoes ever so slightly in the central corridor as they begin to float up.

Caleb continues, "We all have different skill sets. Both Caduceus and you are clerics, yes, but Caduceus simply prefers to focus on healing and things like that while you like to focus on smacking monsters until they stop trying to eat us. Both are extremely helpful. There is no shame in just... having your own way of helping."

She considers this in silence. Caleb watches her and settles further into her arms.

"Yeah," she murmurs finally. "Thank you, Caleb."

"Thank you for not leaving me to die."

"Well of course not!"

They alight onto the seventh floor, having seen no one else on their way up. Caleb can guess rather easily that everyone else had the same thought he did and raced to their own rooms as fast as possible. Veth's own door is shut.

"Hey, Caleb?" Jester asks.

"Yes?"

"Do you have, like, a thing for really strong people? Being carried or something?"

He stills as heat immediately floods his face. "Um."

She's grinning at him now. With a quick motion, she adjusts her hold on him to be more secure and lifts him a little higher. Her biceps flex against his shoulder and hip. Caleb can almost hear the blood rushing to his ears.

"It's nothing to be embarrassed about, Caleb," she teases. "I feel pretty flattered, actually."

"Um," he says again. There are no other words in his head.

Jester walks over to Caleb's door and barely hesitates before she shifts him and his weight over to a single arm, settling him against her like she had him earlier when he regained consciousness. The motion is as smooth as if she simply adjusted a stack of books. Caleb remembers another word and says, " _Mist_ ," as he buries his face in Jester's shoulder.

There's the click of the door opening and closing as he pants into Jester's soft coat. Wonders dizzily how much of his blood is staining it now as there's another door open and shut. Then another door.

"Geez, Caleb, even your other rooms look boring," says Jester's baffled voice by his ear.

He shifts his head and finds his gaze already unfocused to nothing but blurs of brown and the dark blue of Jester's neck. "You really want to talk about my decor now?" he rasps and can't bring himself to care how undone he already sounds.

He can hear the surprise in Jester's voice as she says, "Oh, wow. This really _is_ a thing, huh?"

Caleb can't bear to come up with a response. He tucks his face back into the warm hollow beneath her jaw and blindly mouths at her neck.

A shiver runs up Jester's body as her breath hitches. Satisfaction pulses in his blood.

"Okay, okay," she huffs. Her other arm returns to curl beneath him.

A second later, he is _flung onto his bed_.

Stars. Stars and fresh pain and the dark wooden ceiling as Caleb gasps for the breath knocked out of him.

Then the flushed-purple face of Jester Lavorre appears above as she drops to a seat on the edge of the bed, gaze filling with an intense curiosity. Wordlessly, she takes one of his wrists to rest it above his head and follows with the other. She tilts her head—then slowly, so slowly, wraps a hand over his crossed wrists to press them down firmly into the mattress.

He squirms out of reflex, then— _gods_ —melts in place. A soft whine escapes his throat as he pants heavily.

Jester whispers, "Holy shitballs." Her eyes are wide and dark. She licks her lips and continues wryly, "Man, this is not a good time."

Caleb swallows and gasps in reply, "No, not really."

There is a lot he is supposed to be saying right now. Or doing. Or something. There are a lot of somethings that have buzzed in his mind as necessary should he and Jester end up in a scenario even remotely like this. Not _at all_ like this, even—a really awkward conversation, ideally.

Jester leans forward and kisses him.

He closes his eyes and lets her mouth overtake his. It's even easier to do so when her hand over his wrists tightens, pushing them back into the bed again. He can't keep a low moan from leaving his lips.

She could hold him here for as long as she wants. Jester could press her other hand against his sternum and overpower every effort Caleb could offer.

Automatically, he tries to reach for her and finds her grip on his wrists like iron. "Fuck," he gasps into the kiss.

At that, Jester hesitates before slowly drawing away. His eyes snap open in sudden panic in time for her to press a reassuring kiss to his forehead and bring the palm of her other hand to the side of his face.

She leans back and smiles ruefully. "You smell so bad."

Caleb gapes at her for a second before the fear—that he stupidly hurt or scared her somehow—vanishes. He turns his face into her hand and laughs as hard as he physically can through his breathlessness.

She begins to laugh, too, brushing her thumb along his cheekbone and under his eye.

"Gods, there is so much grossness still dried on that eye," Caleb manages.

"My coat is all stained and shit," Jester gasps between laughs. "Like half of it is your blood."

"I am so, so sorry," he wheezes. He puts a hand to his side now that Jester's grasp has loosened to nothing. "I am maybe 80 per cent positive that a wound here has reopened a little."

"Oh no, Caleb!"

He waves that hand at her as she leans over to look in dismay. "It's fine. This is... oof." He wraps a hand around the one Jester still has resting on his cheek so that he can bury his face into both. "A lot. An accident. An awkward conversation to have later, definitely," he mumbles into the palm of her hand.

"Awkward?" He feels her hand brush aside stray locks of his hair. "Why does it have to be awkward?"

Caleb peers at her from the edge of their hands, heart sinking a little. He bites his lip but only manages a breath in before Jester moves her hand to cover his mouth.

"Actually, no," she says, some rue returning to her smile. "Don't answer that. We're both really gross and I don't want to argue with you about whatever dumb things you want to say until we've both had a bath. And food. And probably some sleep. Man, I want some hot cocoa."

Reluctant as he is to simply go with her dismissal ( _dumb things?_ ), he has to acquiesce. He sighs through his nose, raising his eyebrows, and she obligingly draws her hand back. "Okay. Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow."

They look at each other. Caleb's face still feels as hot as the Nine Hells. Jester hesitates, then trails a hand down the side of his face.

When she reaches his chin, she stops and rubs it briefly with her thumb. "The dimple is still really cute, you know."

"Well. You're beautiful."

To Caleb's surprise, _she_ blushes harder at his compliment than he does.

Jester draws back her hands in order to twist her fingers together, face now a dark and pretty shade of purple. "Oh, well, thanks. Um, so. Tomorrow, then."

"Yes."

"Okay." She stands up, seems to flush a little more at registering their circumstances again, and says, "Also, I'm going to decorate your rooms. Seriously, they're so empty. You should have something really nice, Caleb."

He clears his throat and averts his eyes. He doesn't think he has a suitable response for that anymore. "I have the whole tower, but. If you want. Goodnight, Jester."

She gives him a crooked smile. "Goodnight, Caleb."

He watches her leave the room, then sighs and lies back in his bed until he hears the final third door click shut. The ghost of Jester's hand presses against his wrists, and with a groan, Caleb sits up and rubs his face with a hand.

He is not going to process all of this right now. It's time to take a bath.

**Author's Note:**

> find me at [@primrose-path-of-dalliance](https://primrose-path-of-dalliance.tumblr.com) on tumblr, where i post fandom things and the occasional bit of writing.


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